Bomb in a Birdcage
by tufty-puff
Summary: "If I can cage him, I can keep him; observe him; quash this unpredictability once and for all." A story in which a deranged informant with a penchant for suicide promotion gets his hands on the strongest man in Ikebukuro in the name of personal exploitation. Will the bomb be actively managed or will it tear the raven's entire world to shreds? Shizaya.
1. Chapter 1: Once Upon a Rooftop

Chapter 1: Once Upon a Rooftop

Orihara Izaya; Highly revered information broker, self-proclaimed lover of all humans and suicide promotion enthusiast, loved rooftops.

He always had, from a very young age; the brunette had always found solace high above the ground, peace no other place on the earth could ever give him, other than a lowly rooftop.

He loved the sense of power that came with being so far above the living world. He loved the sense of security he felt at the knowledge that all of his beloved humans slept soundly below his feet, absorbed in their own dreams, unawares of the world around them. He loved the way the vehicles below, with their brightly lit head lights, looked like tiny insects scuttling around aimlessly, that of which he could crush with just the barest amount of pressure of his thumb if the urge so took him.

Izaya adored it all.

The informant believed that what he felt, when high up in the Ikebukuro sky line, was what it must feel like to walk among the Gods. To be able to watch over each and every human being from above their oblivious little heads; to be able to scrutinise from afar without the awareness of the victim.

That was true power.

And Izaya craved it.

After his failure to manipulate the Dullahan into playing fool in his little battle of wits, Izaya had taken to climbing the flights of stairs belonging to the tallest buildings in Ikebukuro and Shibuya almost every night without fail.

Some ignorant beings may say that it was insanity that drove him to the rooftops whenever the stars and moon appeared but Izaya's reasoning was that if the Irish fairy was not willing to grant him his well-deserved God status then he would just have to wait it out, until a real deity, a real being of power, spied him and saw his true potential as a guardian of the human race.

But until that time, Izaya would wait.

A small burst of giggles erupted from the brunette's chest as he raised his right arm over his head, index finger waving about in the air pointlessly as he pretended to connect the twinkling stars in the night sky.

"All these thoughts about Gods and Deities," Izaya spoke quietly to himself, shaking his head slowly from side to side, his giggling coming to an abrupt end. "You'd never believe I was an Atheist."

The informant leaned precariously over the railings that lined the very edges of the rooftops, feet planted on the lowest rung of the metal barrier, his scarlet stare trained down at the darkness of the alley-way that ran along the sides of the office building he currently resided on.

He squinted slightly, trying, in vain, to see past the darkness of the night, to where, he knew, covering the filthy ground of the alley, were an assortment of blood smatterings and broken suitcases.

It had been a good couple of weeks for Izaya and his hobby.

With no war to take up the vast majority of his concentration, Izaya had had a lot more of his time and effort to give to the suicidal minority of Tokyo.

Izaya and his unethical past time of helping young people meet their maker; had been rather busy. What with the end of the war and thus, the end of many large gangs, a great number of gang members no longer felt any worth in life and had turned to the bustling world of online suicide forums, where Izaya, or rather, Nakura-san lay in wait.

Izaya had been responsible… no, not responsible, but a factor, in the increase in the number of people taking their own lives in Ikebukuro and Shibuya over those past few months.

But, who was he to deny them of what they wanted?

He did love them after all.

Izaya laughed serenely and smiled quietly to himself as he drew his upper body back up straight, raising his head to stare up at the eerily bright and full moon.

Most people would call Izaya hedonistic and, he would have to agree with them. He was just, trying to enjoy life as much as humanly possible before he, too, bit the metaphorical dust, so to speak.

What was the harm in that?

Every man, woman and child held a primal desire, however hidden or prominent, to pursue pleasure for themselves.

After all, contrary to popular belief, Izaya was only human himself.

And it was that need to seek out pleasure and danger which caused Izaya to climb the final few bars of the railing, spreading his arms out wide, as he balanced precariously on the top most rung, taking a few careful steps along the metal barrier.

If Izaya had been thinking straight at that moment in time, he would have realised how unbelievably irresponsible he was being in his current condition, as, although Izaya believed himself to be immune to illness, several months of relentless insomnia affected even the most head strong of people.

It wasn't that Izaya had been evading a good night's sleep on purpose for the last however many months it had been, it was just, whenever Izaya's head hit his pillow, and his ruby eyes closed, his ability to find sleep ran away from him into the night, leaving him wide awake and increasingly restless.

Another bout of hysterical giggles bubbled up from deep within Izaya's chest as he swayed dangerously on the metal rail, the wind running its icy fingers across his reddened cheeks and through his unkempt hair.

"I wonder what Shizu-chan would say if he saw me up here?" Izaya glanced down at the fall below his feet, speaking to no one in particular, corner of his mouth twitching upwards, forming a somewhat deranged half smile.

Heiwajima Shizuo.

The strongest and most feared human being in all of Ikebukuro.

Or so, that's what the residents said.

But Izaya knew better than to believe this, as, how could Heiwajima Shizuo, blonde bartender uniform clad scourge of Ikebukuro, who possessed the world's most terrible temper and a personality to match, be Ikebukuro's strongest human being when he wasn't even human at all?

Now, Izaya did not doubt Shizuo's unnatural strength, not in the least, as the informant had seen first-hand the destruction that could be caused by the blonde menace and had been on the receiving end of his rages many times throughout his life.

What Izaya doubted was Shizuo's humanity.

As humans were supposed to be fragile and weak, easily broken like the finest china plate, in need of a protector to watch over them, to keep them safe and out of harms ever eager grasp.

But Shizu-chan was different.

Shizu-chan could take on a whole gang of armed men on his own and come away virtually unscathed, he could uproot street signs and trees and even the odd small house or vehicle when the occasion so called for it and most worryingly, Izaya could never, no matter how hard he tried, predict what the body guard would do next.

And this scared Izaya, even though he would never ever dare admit that out loud.

Shizu-chan was as inhuman as any ancient possessed sword or headless horse rider, and yet, it was only the informant who could see this.

Shizu-chan was a monster.

That was the only logical reasoning Izaya could think of to explain his strength, his unpredictability and his aptitude to be so loathsome, for surely, if Shizu-chan was indeed human, Izaya would have felt the very same way he did for him as he did the whole human race.

But he didn't.

What he felt for Shizuo was different, and he hated it.

* * *

Hello everyone! This is Tufty here and thus commences the start of Bomb in a Birdcage! This story has been a work on hold for the past... two or so years just as I got into Durarara! and thus this beautiful pairing. So this chapter, which is more of an prologue, is just a warmer before the heavy stuff starts, as if this isn't heavy already!

This is my first ever uploaded fanfiction so please be nice and leave a comment about what you thought of the introduction-y-thingy and feel free to mail me (I NEED THE ENCOURAGEMENTasmywritingsuck s)

I hope you have enjoyed the first installment of Bomb in a Birdcage, I will try to update regularly!

Also, if there is any terminology or anything that you don't understand in the bulk of the text, please feel free to ask me. I am British you see and very aware that terminologies and meanings are very different world wide!

I hope you enjoy! Please review, favourite, anything!

Enjoy.


	2. Chapter 2: Childish Whims

Bomb in a Birdcage: Chapter 2, Childish Whims.

* * *

It was a Tuesday when the idea suddenly dawned.

So suddenly in fact that the thought could have been a rogue flying road sign or trash can thrown by none other than the blonde brute himself for all Izaya could have known. None the less, the thought completely caught the young informant off guard, too absorbed in the notion of stirring his dark black coffee and flicking aimlessly through a three month old woman's health magazine, left discarded on the coffee shop table he, in that moment, occupied.

Scarlet eyes widened as he stared, unseeing ahead at a mother and her daughter sat at a table across the café, the young girl waving a tiny toy elephant about by its trunk as her mother chastised her troublesome behaviour.

"Zoo! Zoo! Zoo!" The toddler chanted, as she swayed precariously in her seat, a short chubby finger pointed at a small flyer stuck to the window of the café by three pieces of sellotape.

"No, now, hurry up and finish your milkshake madam or else I'll send a letter to the zoo, saying how naughty you've been and they'll come and put you in a cage with all the lions."

The wailing of the girl concealed the screeching of chair legs against tiled floors as the raven rose from his seat suddenly, a sly Cheshire cat smile plastered onto his face as he made his way across the coffee shop to the window, stopping just short of the child.

The little girl ceased her crying immediately to look at the strange man who stood next to her, her tiny toy elephant all but forgotten as he lay quietly on the floor, having fallen in the ruckus. She took a deep breath, crocodile tears having all but disappeared, before asking in a confident voice, "Do you want to go the zoo too?"

Izaya nodded enthusiastically as he continued to stare at the colourful piece of poor advertisement.

"I do, yes!" He said happily, peeling the leaflet off the grubby window, folding the piece of paper carefully and shoving it into one of his back pockets.

Without warning Izaya spun around suddenly to face the red faced little girl, her mother tensing in her seat as she watched the scene play out warily.

"Tell you what!" He chirped as he crouched down, balancing precariously on his haunches, "I'll open my own zoo, a much better zoo than that one, and you are invited." He all but sung, touching a ring adorned finger to the small girl's chest.

"Really mister?" The little girl asked, wide blue eyes glistening with excitement at the strange but perfectly welcomed proposition. "Will there be lions and elephants there?" She asked innocently, gently swinging her little legs.

The crimson eyed man smiled, closing his eyes and leaning into the little girl, a hand coming up to cup the little girl's ear in a secretive gesture as he whispered, "No, it'll be a special zoo, not for boring normal animals like that, no. My zoo will be the stuff of nightmares, a freak show if you will; a place where humans just like you and your mummy can watch, in safety, from behind inch thick glass and steel, the scariest of monsters the whole of Ikebukuro has to offer."

The little girl's mother watched from across the coffee shop table as the peculiar man continued to whisper into her daughter's ear. The gesture seemed innocent enough, perhaps even playful, as the man, no doubt, regaled her daughter in his imaginary zoo, feeding the fire to her already wild imagination.

But all too quickly the mood changed, her daughter's bright blue eyes turned suddenly blood shot and tearful, her rosy cheeks draining of colour as Izaya pulled away from her, resting once more, crouched on the floor, hands splayed on the ground behind him.

"What did you just say to my daughter?" The mother asked, quickly rising to her feet and reaching out for her little girl.

"Oh nothing nothing, she can tell you that herself. I was merely telling her about my little zoo, isn't that right sweetie?" The raven shrugged, also rising from his hunched position on the floor, thrusting his hands into his fur lined coat.

"No, what did you really say to her?" She asked, voice rising, as she rounded on Izaya, motherly instinct in full force much to the informant's glee.

"That's wonderful! So wonderful, just like a lioness and her cub! The wrath of a mother protecting her child is truly the greatest wrath of all!" Izaya sang, jumping on the spot, clapping and congratulating the woman before stating in a somewhat airy voice, "I really do love humans."

"Cut the crap!" The now irate woman all but yelled, "What the fuck did you say to her? What did you do to her you pervert?!"

The bouncing ceased at once as shock registered on Izaya's face. "My my, a pervert you say? Where?"

"Tell me what you said right now or I am phoning the police!"

The raven once again shrugged and laughed to himself, "It is not my fault your offspring is incapable of controlling her feelings. "

The little girl sobbed uncontrollably, sobs wracking her body violently as she gasped for gulps of air. Izaya smiled once more at the little girl, muttering the single word, "Bless.", under his voice before regarding the mother with amused eyes.

"Ah emotion, I love that in a human."

The woman took a lunge toward Izaya, anger boiling over, teeth grinding in fury.

"Why you piece of shi-"

In a flurry of motion and fur, the informant spun on the spot and skipped away towards the café door, darting out of the mother's murderous grasp.

"Oh, I almost forgot, silly me!"

Stopping just short of the glass door, Izaya's hand darted into the right pocket of his jacket and pulled out the little girl's small blue plush elephant, bringing the small toy to his face and inhaling deeply.

"He was on the floor the poor thing. You know, you should really teach your child to look after her belongings better." He said, tucking the elephant once more into his pocket.

Izaya smiled at the now aghast mother sweetly, quickly blowing her a kiss, before darting out of the coffee shop door, the welcoming bell not enough to cover the "Your welcome!" that had been thrown over his shoulder.

The mother stood there, mouth open, eyes wide and disbelieving for a moment longer before tending to her small child and her inconsolable tears.

* * *

Hello again, Tufty here and thus, chapter 2. Oh my gosh, I am ashamed at how short the chapters are at the moment. I was going to write more for this chapter but thought that that was a good place to end it and that I am way too tired to do anything more than read it over a few times and change a few words here and there. I hope you enjoy, please review and all that jazz, I would love to know what you think.

Hopefully you guys can see what's going on in Izaya's mind and what he is going to try and do. He's such a bitch ne?

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed! Please please review and follow!


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